In a video report this week, San Antontio-based WOAI.com reported that a Hood County rancher heard a growl come from his barn. When he looked inside, "he saw the ugliest creature he’s ever seen. An animal officer came out, pulled the trigger, killing what some believe is the mythical or mystical goat-sucker.”

The Hood County Animal Control office declined to take questions from the Monitor today, redirecting all queries to the office of Chief Deputy George “Biff” Temple, who did not return a phone call.

This was by no means the first chupacabra sighting in Texas. DNA tests on similar-looking animals found on separate occasions in 2004 revealed them to be coyotes. In January, CBS News reported that several golf course workers found the corpse of a chupacabra.

But Mr. Coleman, author of more than 30 books on mythical creatures, including “Cryptozoology A To Z: The Encyclopedia of Loch Monsters, Sasquatch, Chupacabras, and Other Authentic Mysteries of Nature,” says the most recent chupacabra sighting is only another case of media hype.

Most sightings, he says, turn out to be dogs, foxes, or coyotes with mange – the skin disease caused by parasitic mites.

"There is absolutely nothing complex, nothing unexplainable, nothing mysterious about them," he says. "What is mysterious is that the media keeps writing about them."

Most of the chupacabra sightings have been in the US or Latin America, and are believed to have begun in Puerto Rico. But the Americas aren't the only places with a fetish for mythical creatures.

The latest supposed chupacabra sighting in Texas appears to be a coyote, says Coleman, reached by phone.

"A lot of people seem unaware of how strange coyotes look without hair," he says. "Coyotes have a bushy coat and very pronounced nose. But as soon as they lose their hair they look extremely weird and strange to people."

At the Animal Care and Control Division in the nearby City of Forth Worth, there are no calls on record of chupacabra sightings.